


Crumbs like Glitter

by Venutian



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s07e07 The Bells of Saint John, Gen, Giant/Tiny, Macro/Micro, Shrinking, Unaware, Vore, jammie dodgers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 06:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20130850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venutian/pseuds/Venutian
Summary: The Bells of Saint John vore AUThe Doctor left Jammie Dodgers for Clara while she was recovering from nearly being uploaded to the cloud. When she wakes up, the first thing she decides to do is have that snack. What if those snacks were never meant for Human consumption?





	Crumbs like Glitter

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my DeviantArt (@venutian) February 2019. I've decided to upload my vore fanfics here as well, both as a backup and to reach a wider audience.
> 
> Visit me on DeviantArt for earlier uploads, research notes/commentary on the completed work, and updates on fics in progress. I'm always willing to consider prompts!

Clara woke up to the sound of footsteps going down the stairs. Funny, she didn’t remember going to bed. It’d been late in the afternoon, she’d met the man from the helpline… what else? Well, it didn’t matter; it’d clearly all been a dream.

Right in front of her, on the bedside table, there was a plate with a pile of Jammie Dodgers. There was also a glass of water, a pitcher of water, and… were those flowers? Clara was quick to notice the packaging for the treats; whoever had left them hadn’t picked up the trash. And… they had also taken a bite out of one of biscuits. It was probably just one of the kids trying to butter her up, trying to persuade her to let them do something. The flowers though… who would’ve left flowers? George was the only option really but it was out of character for him; perhaps he’d found a permanent nanny after all and was trying to thank her for her work. Maybe. She’d have to ask him about that. But wait… George and Artie had gone out overnight, and Angie had been on her way over to a friend’s house. She’d been supposedly home alone. Except… except for that helpline guy.

Clara sat up quickly, looking around the room. Her head hurt and she felt a little woozy. Downstairs, the front door closed. There was that flicker of fear, realizing that she was maybe not as alone as she thought. But no, no, it had to just be Angie coming home from her friend’s house. At least the door had closed, not opened. 

The table kept catching her eye. Clara’s stomach growled when her gaze swept across the plate; it’d been a while since she’d eaten anything and anyways she’d always had a bit of a sweet tooth. What could it hurt, to have one treat before going downstairs to investigate the door situation? They were just Jammie Dodgers, they wouldn’t hurt anything. Clara picked one up, quickly taking a bite and savoring the flavor. It was as she was finishing the biscuit that she began to feel a bit dizzy, like the room was spinning around her. Clara squeezed her eyes shut, gripping the edge of the bed, waiting for the moment to pass.

When it did, Clara opened her eyes, fists still wrapped around the fabric of the bedsheet. But it was different, coarser, stiffer. And then everything else registered. She was still on the edge of the bed, but it had gotten huge! Or was it that she had gotten smaller? Confused and awestruck, Clara looked around, finding that the latter was true. There she was in bed, in her room, half the size as the the glass of water on her bedside table. She was still dreaming then, there was no other explanation. The Jammie Dodgers had to have been the root of the issue; she hadn’t consumed anything else and the problem had happened after she’d eaten it. She had to further investigate this! If not to find a cure, then just to understand what had happened.

It was an easy jump over to the table, being as it was about level with the mattress. Clara walked atop the wooden surface, marveling at the size of everything. It was amazing. It felt so… real. She wandered over to the plate of Jammie Dodgers, standing right in front of it. There was a crumb there on the edge of the ceramic, about as big as Clara’s hand. She picked it up, scrutinizing it. It was just a piece of shortbread, with jam residue on one side. Just a… a regular crumb. She probably wouldn’t have even noticed it at her regular size. Did food taste different when she was small? Would it have its usual texture, or would size also affect that? The crunch? The sweetness of the jam? She had to try it, in the name of science.

Clara ate the crumb of shortbread, considering its properties. Sadly, it just seemed like a regular Jammie Dodger to her; the same amount of crunch, same level of sweetness. It didn’t even taste any different. Curious. Clara climbed onto the plate, walking closer to the pile of treats in the center. Specifically, she was interested in the one with the bite taken out of it. As Clara leaned in to get a better look at the teeth marks, hoping to maybe try to identify them, the buzzing in her head started up again. She realized what she’d done and frantically looked around as if to call out for help, but it was too late. She’d already eaten another dose. She was about to get a whole lot smaller.

This time, Clara didn’t close her eyes. It’d been a mistake to remain standing up; the spinning causes her to lose her balance and topple forward, right into the stack of Jammie Dodgers. She had just turned around, meaning to get up, when the world shot up around her. Growing with a soft whoosh, like wind through a seashell. When the room came to a standstill, Clara could only lie there in a dazed nausea caused by the spinning. The Jammie Dodgers towered now all around her. If she’d been pretty small the first time she’d been shrunk, she could only imagine what a second time around would scale her to.

She had to get up, get away from the poison before she was tempted once again. Clara struggled, finding that she’d shrunk right into the spot of jam on the top of the already-bitten biscuit. The filling was thick and it was sticky, holding her limbs securely in place. It even seemed as though the more she struggled, the deeper she worked into the sweet-smelling substance. Despite her best efforts, Clara could not manage to tear herself free. A fly stuck in a spider’s web, hopelessly trapped by the Jammie Dodger.

\-----

It had been a while since the Doctor had checked up on Clara and, as he sat in a folding chair on the driveway, he was getting a little impatient. Well, not impatient exactly. Anxious. He’d been sure that she was just sleeping when he’d left her but then… impromptu things could happen, couldn’t they? You could pop out to get dressed and come back to find someone having their consciousness uploaded into some sort of cloud. But that didn’t matter, she was safe now. Yes, she was safe, he’d taken care of that. Had made all the reassurances to the contacts in her phone, had guarded her and let her sleep. She was just sleeping. So why wouldn’t his mind be quiet?

Sighing, the Doctor closed Clara’s computer and rubbed at his eyes. Now that he’d started thinking about her condition, he couldn’t stop. He should check in on her to make sure she was still sleeping peacefully. Just for a second. Yes, that’d assuage his fears.

The Doctor entered in through the front door of the home and went directly up the stairs, towards Clara’s room. He knocked lightly on the door, in case she’d awoken, but there was no response. Sleeping still. But he’d better make sure. So he slowly twisted the doorknob and poked his head inside the room, fully prepared to smile upon her resting form. But Clara wasn’t there. The Doctor pushed open the door and entered her bedroom in a sort of shock. The covers were thrown back, sheets tousled, and yet she was nowhere to be seen. So where had she gone? She couldn’t possibly have left the house; he’d been watching the front door and there would be no reason for her to sneak through the back. He also hadn’t heard anyone walking around downstairs, but then, he had made straight for her bedroom. Maybe she’d just run off to the bathroom. In any case, he was sure that Clara would return. He’d just wait for her so that he could talk to her—both about what had happened with the Wi-Fi and to ask her about the other versions of her that he’d met. It’d been a long time coming.

“Clara?” He spun a little around the room, hoping to hear a reply or at least find a clue as to where she’d gone. No such luck. That wasn’t good at all, but there was no need to panic. She’d turn up. The Doctor sat down on the side of her bed, bouncing a little as he did so. It was a nice little room, cozy for a Human. He’d looked around a bit when he’d first brought her up there, when he’d had hours to waste. Remarkably ordinary for an extraordinary woman.

A few minutes passed and still, there was no sign of Clara. No sound, no scent, nothing. The Doctor was starting to get twitchy, starting to get a little worried. If she didn’t come back soon he’d have to start looking for her and he’d already spent enough time doing that. Too many years, too many false trails. The thought of losing her when he’d only just found her again was almost unbearable, especially now that he’d seen her face. No- no, it wasn’t helpful to think like that. Patient. Just be patient.

He looked around the room again, eyes finally falling on the biscuits he’d left on Clara’s bedside table. The Doctor didn’t have to count them to tell that she’d eaten one and the thought brought a smile to his face. Who could resist a Jammie Dodger? Certainly not him. Certainly… hmm. The half-eaten one still sat on the pile, a testament to his own inability to resist the temptation. He’d picked the sleeve of Dodgers up a while ago and had forgotten about them, had left them discarded in a cupboard of the TARDIS. Food didn’t go bad on the TARDIS, so they’d stayed as fresh as the day he’d gotten them. It was a good thing, too; they seemed to have come in handy.

The longer the Doctor looked and thought about the treats, the more appealing they seemed. He’d left the bitten one as a sort of message to Clara, but she’d already seen it, hadn’t she? She must’ve, if she’d gone for one of her own. It wasn’t like Clara was going to eat that one anyways; she had the rest of the sleeve for herself and she’d never pick half a biscuit over a whole biscuit. Nobody would; that’d be just stupid. He didn’t need try any harder to convince himself.

The Doctor picked up the half-eaten Jammie Dodger, pinching the faces of it carefully between his thumb and forefinger so as not to touch any of the filling. He smiled to himself, enjoying the small little moment of happy anticipation. It didn’t last long. Unable to wait any longer, the Doctor bit into the biscuit, breaking it in half with his teeth. Delicious as ever. After a few chews, he popped the rest of it into his mouth, enjoying the sweet flavor as he awaited Clara’s return.

\-----

When Clara had first seen the strange man enter her room, she’d been alarmed. She’d thought he was a burglar at first, until she recognized him as the guy who’d pounded furiously on a front door. The helpline guy, or so he’d claimed? But he’d been dressed as a monk then, not… this. Actually, he’d cleaned up rather nicely in that suit and bowtie. Hair greased back, curling over a little in the front. Ill-fitted button-up shirt tucked into a dark pair of slacks. Well… it was certainly a look. Clara might have even been fond of it if it weren’t for the circumstances, if it weren’t for the fact that he’d somehow gained entry into the Maitland’s home (which she was pretty sure she’d locked) and was standing in her bedroom.

It was he who’d brought the Jammie Dodgers, he who’d poured her water and brought up flowers, Clara realized with spreading horror. Not George. Not Angie. Oh, how stupid she felt. He’d had ample time and opportunity to drug her—assuming that was what’d happened—and now was coming back to inspect his work. Or finish the job, whatever that was. He had seemed a little… unhinged earlier, so even in this dream state (and it had to be a dream, hadn’t it?) Clara couldn’t help but be nervous about his presence.

What was his name again? He’d said it, back before the accident. The… the… the Doctor! Right! She didn’t completely trust him, but he was probably the only person in a position to help Clara out of her predicament. Even if his motives were less than pristine, even if he was the one who’d done this to her, maybe he could at least restore her to her original size. It was worth a shot. She had to get his attention first.

The Doctor lumbered towards her, getting larger with every thundering step. Not quite in slow motion but slow in a way that a person wasn’t supposed to be, like Clara’s own vision had been impaired. Like her internal clock was running quicker than everything else around her. He paused in the center of the room and for a moment, all Clara could do was stare wide-eyed up at him. He was absolutely colossal, almost godlike in the way that he stood before her. Not necessarily in a good way. She could see the rise and fall of his chest through that wrinkled white shirt and she was struck by the he was living. Hundreds of times larger than her and they were occupying the same space, breathing the same air, both illuminated by the rays of the lamp in the corner of the room.

“Hey!” Clara screamed, as loud as she could manage. “Doctor!” Unfortunately, the gigantic man gave no indication that he’d heard her. He was just… standing there. She tried to move, tried to thrash around again in the jam to either free her body or even just her arms, trying to get his attention in any way she could. But she was just too small.

“Cl-aaa-ra?” A titan speaking down to a colony of ants, voice filling the room like a jet plane in a warehouse. Not loud in the sense that it just hurt her ears but loud in that it was all-encompassing, deep and rumbling and drawn out in a way a Human was never meant to hear. It was electrifying and terrifying at the same time.

“I’m down here!” Still, his eyes swept around the room, unseeing. If he couldn’t hear her, then she would have to wait for him to spot her. Clara wasn’t entirely sure just how small she actually was, but she had to hope it was large enough to detect. He just had to look in the right place. She knew he would. This hope grew as the Doctor began to walk again, deeper into the room and towards her bed. Those sweeping, lumbering motions… so effortless, without a second thought and yet swift and powerful enough to topple buildings, to level mountains, even to strike her into the next dimension if he so desired. When he got close enough to the table he filled practically Clara’s entire field of view, just a storm of black and white fabric. When the Doctor sat down on the edge of her bed the mattress groaned like a roof being torn by a tornado twisting through the skies.

Clara stared in silence up at this strange man, studied the angles of his face and the sharpness of his jaw. He slowly turned, looking downward. Looking at her. There was a sort of iciness that ran through her veins as their eyes met and Clara forced a smile through the nerves. But then, his eyes continued around the table. He hadn’t been looking at her, Clara realized, he’d been looking at the plate. He’d been staring straight at her and hadn’t seen her.

And then his attention was back on the plate again, a happy little glint in his eye that filled Clara with an overwhelming sense of dread. Before she knew it he was reaching out, that huge hand spreading out and extending towards her. The Jammie Dodger that Clara was stuck on shifted, moved underneath her, and then began to rise. Clara yelped as her stomach did flips, the vertigo swimming around her head. She’d always been good on carnival rides but this was something different entirely, a sort of danger and trackless flight that made her a bit nauseous. The overwhelming, artificial scent of the jam filling did little to alleviate this.

Closer and closer, until his face filled Clara’s entire line of sight and she realized what was actually happening. Powerless to do anything to change her situation, powerless to do anything except look up at what little of him she could see. His skin had such a sharp clarity about it, an almost sickening level of detail that maybe would have been interesting on film but not in person. Not as she was facing what might literally be her death. No dream that Clara had ever had before, as far as she could remember, contained such acute detail or followed a narrative so linear that it actually made sense. Or in which she was so powerless for so long without waking herself. It left only the conclusion that against all impossibilities… she was awake.

Each breath that the Doctor took blew across the Jammie Dodger, whipping through the filling and right into Clara’s face. Warm, slow gusts of wind, the likes of she’d never experienced before and hoped she’d never experience again. Damp and slightly sweet smelling at the same time, fading away only as the biscuit was lifted out of the breath’s path and all the way to the Doctor’s mouth.

Clara didn’t have time to be scared; the bite came with speed she hadn’t thought to associate with something as large as he. His teeth came crunching down on the treat not far from where Clara was stuck. A wall of white, slicing through the shortbread as if it were nothing, sending shockwaves throughout the filling. Precision. Truly made for chopping and tearing away at food. Clara watched, paralyzed, as the other half of the biscuit simply disappeared, mouth pulling away to first chew what it’d bitten off. Teeth with streaks of red from the jam, microscopic crumbs of shortbread like glitter on his lips.

A polite chewer even though he thought he was alone, working on the Jammie Dodger with his mouth closed, which Clara appreciated. She didn’t have to think hard about what would come next. Despite the wall of flesh between her and the teeth, she could hear the crunching of the baked good in his mouth. A sort of wet noise as he worked it between his teeth with his tongue, saliva sloshing around inside the cavity. And she was next.

Truthfully, Clara wished that it had been her half of the treat to be eaten first, so she wouldn’t have to be subjected to the macabre sort of preview. So it’d be over with quick, and so she wouldn’t have time to picture herself being gnashed between those colossal teeth. And if not the teeth, then burning, melting to death from his digestive juices. The wetness on her cheek was neither jam nor saliva. Clara had thought quite a bit about her own death, but never imagined it would be so soon, or even in such a manner. And so the tear was sort of justified, although it certainly wasn’t dignified. As Clara shivered, suspended in the filling of an enormous Jammie Dodger, she thought maybe there was no way to be dignified in a situation as ridiculous as this.

Before she knew it, the mouth was opening again. He hadn’t swallowed; the remains of the Jammie Dodger—in various states of being broken down—was littered throughout his mouth and gathered on his tongue. Clara cried out one final time as the biscuit began moving towards the gaping opening; it was one last act of desperation that seemed to have no payoff. She squeezed her eyes shut, suddenly feeling a lot of movement and not wanting to see herself enter into her tomb. Even with her eyes closed she was aware of a swift darkness and could feel the change of humidity in the air. It smelled strongly of Jammie Dodger, the artificial sugars and jam threatening to suffocate her. No, wait a minute, she was just being dramatic; it really wasn’t all that bad. She could breathe, and she was alive still, so she refused to complain. Not in her last moments. In a strange moment of complete stillness, Clara cracked open her eyes and found that her half of the biscuit was resting on the Doctor’s tongue.

Clara was fortunate enough to not be touching the muscle itself but she could see its shadowy form somewhere beneath her. Dark and foreboding, dripping—as was the rest of the chamber—with saliva. The tongue undulated, making miniscule movements as the flavor soaked from the Dodger to the Doctor’s taste buds. She thought maybe he’d just let it dissolve peacefully. Maybe she’d have a chance to break free from the jam and lunge from his mouth before he swallowed. It was a nice thought, a thought of hope, and it invigorated her. If she could just-

And then he was chewing, grinding the Jammie Dodger into pieces. Having tossed the biscuit with his tongue between his molars, swishing the treat around as he broke it down. Clara was so small that every little movement was extreme, every stomach-dropping pass between the teeth enough to rattle both her brain and her nerves. She’d gotten lucky a couple of times; wriggling just out of the way of the sharp edges just before they could snap her or—once—even ducking down into the crown of a molar, face only centimeters from the oncoming tooth. But Clara had gotten unlucky too; thrown against the hard calcium roughly enough to see stars or rolled between the tongue and a tooth like pretzel dough.

When the movement became less intense and the tongue had withdrawn some, Clara took in a deep breath. She was coated in saliva and bits of shortbread and found that she was quite dizzy after being thrown and rolled around so many times. She was disoriented, unsure of where exactly she’d come to rest in the mouth. There was a swallow then, a loud wet gulp that caused Clara to shudder. She was completely prepared to be taken along with it, to find herself suddenly sucked into darkness. But… nothing happened.

As her head and vision cleared, Clara realized that she’d gotten caught in a slick of jam between the backsides of his upper premolars. Nowhere near his tongue or his throat indeed. As Clara caught her breath, she watched the mouth warily from her unfortunate perch. The way that the back of the throat moved as the swallow traveled down the Doctor’s body, the residual saliva slowly draining away. His mouth was slightly ajar, lips parted, allowing light to filter in like beams from a treetop canopy.

Clara’s eyes were still drawn to the back of his mouth, the pink wall where the true ‘mouth’ ended and the throat began. The dark hole behind the tongue, dangerous, the line between her life and her death. She was balanced precariously on the edge of a blade, right between being eaten and falling free, although admittedly the odds were not very well in her favor. Nervously she tore her gaze away from his throat and tried to focus on something else, anything else. Movement caught her eye and so she looked down at his tongue, undulating as if with a mind of its own, settling back into its place at the bottom. The way the light illuminated the muscle highlighted the wetness of the tongue, the saliva shimmering and glowing. Clara could also see all the little bumps on the tongue—the taste buds she realized—white and red and pink in hues she’d never thought to imagine.

Few teeth were visible from where Clara was stuck but she could still observe their dangerous sharpness, could sense them even as they loomed around and underneath her. And yet, despite their knife-like qualities, there was something beautiful about even them. They way they glistened in the low light, not even the slightest hint of decay among them. Funny, she would have thought that the teeth were the scariest, most dangerous part of the mouth. But… at the moment, they were the only thing keeping her alive.

And then his mouth opened a little wider, more light streaming in. Clara tried shouting again, thinking maybe her words would carry, but she’d barely gotten a word out before there was movement out of the corner of her eye. His tongue flicked up, smothering her both with pressure and its own wetness. The tip was pressed against her face and then it had scooped her out from her ‘hiding spot’, sending her into a quick freefall to the wider part of the muscle at the bottom of his mouth. She had only one moment to breathe before she was flattened to the roof of his mouth, surrounded again by darkness. There was a hard suction, the sound of a swallow, and then Clara was pulled into the Doctor’s throat.

It was what felt like a very, very long fall. Well, it wasn’t a fall entirely, as Clara could feel the lining of the throat all around her, including underneath her. But the speed at which she was pushed down the dark tunnel was dizzying, made only more confusing by the assortment of sounds around her. Sometimes loud and sometimes quiet, what sounded like a heart echoing all around her from every side at once, even the squelching of the throat as it spread below her feet and closed above her head.

She didn’t even realize she’d made it to his stomach until the flesh beside her seemed to disappear, leaving her in complete freefall for a couple of seconds until she finally hit the spongey matter at the bottom. Clara bounced only once; upon falling back down onto the muscle below, the ‘room’ pitched and she slid backwards, down a slippery slope and into a massive puddle of half-digested Jammie Dodger at the bottom.

“Ugh…” Clara couldn’t help but groan aloud as she practically swam through the goop towards the edge of the mass. She stood up in it, holding her arms above her waist and scraping the shortbread mush off her face and shirt. It was disgusting, so revolting. This mixture of Dodger and saliva and- oh. Right. Acid. Clara squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the burning to start. Even tingling, as it’d probably start off slow and get worse as her skin melted off. But the pain never came, not even in the parts of her which were still presumably surrounded by stomach acid. Tentatively, she put her hand against one of the ridges of the stomach. It was cool, almost cold to the touch, but still no sign that the acid was hurting her. She wasn’t burning! Maybe Clara could survive the ordeal after all.

\-----

The Doctor sighed, glancing down at the watch on the inside of his wrist. There was still no sign of Clara and it certainly didn’t look like she planned on coming back to her room. He withdrew his sonic screwdriver and scanned around, looking for her. Even though he’d prevented Clara’s download into the cloud, she’d still activated the Wi-Fi and she still gave off little ghost traces of the alien device that had tried to capture her. The Doctor couldn’t ping it to an exact location, but judging from the readout… yeah, alright. Clara was still inside the house somewhere. That was a bit reassuring.

He decided that he’d make himself some tea, both to pass the time and to have another good look around the house. The Doctor got up off the bed, stretching. Tea would be nice. Not as nice as finding Clara, but nice all the same. It was as he was descending the stairs that the Doctor had the idea that… well, it was possible Clara was purposefully making herself hard to find. Hiding from him. That would make things complicated. No, no, it was Clara. She wouldn’t hide from him, would she? He was no threat! He’d saved her this time, he’d taken care of her… but would she recognize that? Did she even remember what had happened?

The debate raged on in his mind as he began to boil some water in the kitchen.

\-----

Although she had only been in the Doctor’s belly for a short period of time, Clara could tell that she was getting bigger. Already she seemed to be about double the height that she’d been when she’d first dropped in, though admittedly that wasn’t saying much. She could measure herself using the wrinkles in the lining of the stomach for comparison, and she would check every couple of minutes just to make sure. Clara hoped that once she got large enough, the Doctor would notice her presence. Surely he would, and maybe he’d even be able to hear her. He’d be able to get her out, even if it meant getting to a hospital. It’d be embarrassing but she could live with that.

The walls of the stomach churned and pushed at the remains of the Jammie Dodger, breaking it up and attempting to work at Clara as well. When she grew tired of being surrounded and up to her hips in the semi-liquid, Clara attempted to climb to higher ground. The stomach was slick, but her hands had dried so there was some traction possible. There were also folds at the bottom of the stomach and she used them to gain foot and handholds. As Clara pulled herself away from the digestive mush, there was a groaning noise followed by a gurgle. The walls around and underneath Clara moved, rippled. She fell backwards, back down into the pool she’d worked hard to try to escape. It was frustrating but there was nothing she could do about it; she would just have to start again.

Before she could get started again there was a different sort of sound, more gurgles, almost like… almost like… well. Clara glanced once over her shoulder, squinting through the near-darkness at the source. The slush around her began to move a little, walls rocking, stomach… draining. Draining! Emptying the stomach contents into the small intestine.

For a moment, Clara just stared at the decreasing liquid level. Her first reaction was that of delight; if the mush was gone she wouldn’t have to fight any more to keep out of it. She could just rest at the bottom of the stomach until she was large enough to be noticed, and then be cleanly removed from there. But then the current caught her, a sea monster pulling her down towards the depths, the suction caused by the lower sphincter greater than she would have imagined. She felt a flash of panic within her chest, overcoming the initial happiness, knowing that at her current size, she could easily be swept into the intestine along with the broken down Jammie Dodger mush. Much too easily. There would be no attention catching from there, would there? She’d just be carried down deeper and deeper into the Doctor’s gut, where she risked death by suffocation or even dehydration.

Clara fought against the drain current with a newfound energy, trying to pull herself out of the semi-liquid. She was slippery with acid and so were the folds of the stomach; there was nothing to grab onto now that she’d been drenched again and nothing to prevent her from sliding back down every time she scrabbled halfway out. The Doctor’s stomach was more powerful than she was, so it seemed inevitable. It wasn’t long before Clara felt her foot brush against the sphincter muscle, sliding just past the ankle through the gate.

She’d almost resigned herself to the defeat when there was suddenly a sound from above. A sort of deep rumble, starting out more muffled and then getting louder. Clara realized it was the sound of a swallow just as liquid burst through the sphincter above, raining down on the almost-empty stomach. The fluid rolled right off the sides of the stomach, following the descending slope to the lower portion of the cavern. It swept Clara up like a tidal wave, crashing around her with just enough force to help her pull her leg free from the sphincter. The liquid was all around her, disorienting her, preventing her from being able to tell which way was up. Her lungs burned, as she hadn’t had the foresight to draw in a breath, and she fought violently to get to some sort of surface. There was the sound of another swallow and Clara was hit with an oncoming wave as liquid just as she brought her head above the surface. She was washed up once again in a wave, then beached on a higher fold of skin as the liquid receded. It was somewhere a little more dry, and as a fresh wave poured in, she happily found that she was out of the flow path entirely.

Clara curled up into herself, gasping and coughing and too afraid to move, lest she fall back down into the exit path. She was safe, but for how long? What if the stomach was filled and there was nowhere for her to hide? If that happened, would she be big enough to prevent falling through the stomach? How long would it take for her to return to her normal height, if she continued to grow at the same rate? There was no way to measure herself and she wasn’t all that sure how to do the math. And there was no way to find the answer to any of her other questions. So she would just have to wait.

She watched as the liquid sprinkled down, a little bit at a time. It was different than it had been when it’d first caught her unaware. The first couple of waves had seemed like big gulps, but the time between the swallows had slowed down considerably and the volume of each new wave was much less than before. Like… he was sipping at whatever it was, enjoying the drink rather than really thirsting for it. It was some sort of hot beverage, thankfully not hot enough to burn her but hot enough that it warmed the cavern and brought it up to a comfortable temperature.

The enlargement process was slow but steady. Clara had already grown much larger than when she’d first arrived. She had tried to get his attention a couple of times, testing if she could be heard, but the sound was only echoed back at her by the rumpled walls around her and still there was no sign that he was aware of her presence. Clara had considered kicking or scratching at the walls, but she wasn’t sure what kind of response that would get and despite everything that had happened, really had no desire to hurt the Doctor. Even if he was to blame for her shrinking, it really didn’t seem like he’d eaten her on purpose.

So she zoned out, trying to lose herself in her own mind to pass the time, trying to think about anything besides the fact that she was trapped in a man’s stomach. Trying not to hear the blood pumping all around her, trying not to listen to the mechanical sounds of digestion somewhere through the flesh beneath her. Just as Clara was steering her mind off it, the entire cavern groaned. Walls moved, the liquid he’d drank churning somewhere in the darkness. The ‘floor’ beneath Clara shifted, pitched sideways at a steep angle. Caught off guard, Clara was unable to keep her perch and she slid down, right into the active puddle of liquid. It was only as she was pulled under the surface that she realized the activity had been caused by the stomach emptying itself. She was still too small to hold herself back. This time, there was nothing to save her, nothing to prevent her from slipping through the pylorus and so Clara was sucked feet-first through the ring of muscle and into the duodenum.

For a minute Clara just slid through it in shock, the smooth and powerful flesh slick with his stomach contents and newly released gastric juices. It was much too quick, expanding and contracting and pushing Clara along with frightening efficiency. After the initial surprise had worn off, she tried to stop her movement, tried to fight against the powerful ripples of the automated process. Clara spread her limbs like a starfish, only just able to touch opposite sides of the tube with her fingertips. Digging through the mucous beneath her fingers, Clara can only just make out the tiny villi that line the walls. It wasn’t enough to hold onto and there was nothing to truly wrap her fingers around. Her feet could find no traction, nor any leverage, and so once again she found that she was just too small. Trying to prevent her progress through the tube was futile.

Alone in the darkness, surrounded on all sides by the wet gurgles and groans of the Doctor’s digestive process, Clara was finding it difficult to stay positive. She occasionally tried to worm around, to fight her way back up the tunnel from which she’d come or even just to slow herself down, to no avail. She really, really didn’t want to continue much further along the path and wasn’t sure how long it would take or even if she was out of danger. Her mind kept flashing back to her worries of dehydration, even suffocation if the conditions changed or if she grew right into the fleshy walls, leaving no room for her lungs to expand. Clara was getting tired, her energy drained and body sore from everything that she’d been put through.

After what seemed like a very long time, Clara realized that she’d grown large enough to plant herself in the walls. She splayed out, palms and toes pressing into the muscular flesh with as much strength as she could muster. For a moment, it worked. The walls undulated angrily beneath her touch, but despite their best efforts they could not move her. Clara smiled and gave a triumphant laugh. She’d done it; she’d-

A new kind of pressure came crushing down on her, knocking the wind from Clara’s lungs. It was different than the way the muscles normally moved. Stronger. It squished down at her, flattening her to the bottom of the tube, thereby shaking her form the grip she’d only just gotten. When the pressure subsided, the ripples of the small intestine restarted, sweeping her dazed and gasping body further down along the path. Clara was so tired, drained and defeated from her repeated losses, that she wasn’t sure how much longer she could continue fighting. She was close to the point of giving up, really close. But… she wasn’t there yet.

Clara splayed out again, arms shaking. Her abdomen burned from holding the position, wrists ached from the angle they were bent at, but she would not let herself be taken again. Not again. She’d gone quite far enough. The squishing pressure came back, trying once again to force her through the tunnel, but this time Clara hadn’t been caught unaware and she was able to resist it. The pressure subsided, Clara triumphant. The small victory charged her system, renewing her hope and her faith in her own abilities, even at small scale. She could do this.

As Clara’s strength slowly waned, her size increased. It wasn’t long before she was able to hold herself in place by tented knees, easing the pressure in her calves and taking some of the burden from her arms. She tucked her head inward, crown tight against the intestinal wall, keeping a pocket of air between her knees and her chest. She was firmly stuck.

\-----

The Doctor sat in the folding chair outside the TARDIS, grasping at his abdomen and focusing on keeping his breathing steady. Whatever was going on in there was unusual, it was sudden, and it hurt. He had kneaded at it before with his hand and that’d helped a little but now it didn’t seem to do anything at all. Whatever it was, he knew it’d probably pass. He just had to wait it out. Just try to distract himself with the Wi-Fi problem, which he was still trying to figure out.

But the discomfort didn’t go away, and in fact only seemed to get worse as time went on. It went from an uncomfortable distraction to a dull ache and then to a more stabbing pain, like he was being stretched from the inside out. He’d better check it out. The Doctor seen enough throughout his travels to know that even the most innocuous sensations could turn out to be something sinister. It was best just to know. And if it was just an upset stomach, at least he could take painkillers or something and get back to work, stay on top of his game in case Clara needed defending. Nothing else had shown up at her door, but it was only a matter of time.

The Doctor gingerly stood up, the movement only seeming to aggravate the pain. He groaned, doubling over just enough to ease some of the tension, hand still grasping at his abdomen. Now that he’d moved, he could tell that it was a focused, more specific pain not generally spread across the area like he’d first assumed. If one of his organs was failing, he’d be able to tell… right? With his worry only increasing, the Doctor shuffled as quickly as he could manage into the TARDIS, still doubled over, the box not seeming close enough.

As he made his way up the stairs and towards the medical bay, the Doctor scanned himself with the screwdriver. It probably wouldn’t help but it couldn’t hurt. As expected, the brief scan didn’t tell him much, but at least he could rule out any sort of technological interference. It could be a biological, though... a parasite perhaps? Or some sort of chemical running through his system? Maybe the tea just hadn’t agreed with him? Unlikely, very unlikely, but possible.

The Doctor staggered into the medical bay and promptly got out an imaging device so that he could get a clearer scan of his system. He didn’t want to take any medication before he was sure what it was for. As he stood there waiting for the machine to boot up, he ran a hand along the tender area. It didn’t feel enflamed, but the pain was still getting progressively worse. For a moment he thought he could feel something akin to movement, but he wrote it off as a muscle spasm. Best to stay positive. Whatever it was, he could fix it.

Finally, the machine was ready for use. The Doctor wheeled it over to a surgical table at one end of the room and got it into position, then carefully got up onto the table and laid down. He took a couple of deep breaths, steadying himself, and then made sure the imaging device was lined up correctly. The scan was activated, tracing his abdomen with little beams of blue light, and then it began to process and convert what it’d found into a picture format. He closed his eyes while he waited for the readout, fingers lightly massaging at the affected area. It didn’t help.

The monitor made a little beeping sound, alerting him that the scan was ready for view. He rolled up onto his side, bracing himself with his forearm, turning the monitor on the imaging device so that he could see it without getting completely up or off the platform. It was like a cold shock had run through his system. Blood draining from his face, hearts practically stopping as he stared wide-eyed at the image.

Clara! The disbelief and shock were quickly swept from his mind as he jumped into action, leaping up from the surgical table without any regard for the pain that it’d caused him. The pain didn’t matter; he could fight through it. The Doctor ran like a twister through the medical bay, grabbing supplies and gathering everything he would need. He was going to get her out of there.

\-----

Clara was so tired, so exhausted. She wanted to sleep almost as much as she wanted to get out of there; now that the adrenaline had worn off, she felt the weight of the night’s events pressing in on her. Literally. Although she was still curled in a sort of fetal position, at the size she’d grown to, she could have probably gotten away with laying flat. Movement was nearly impossible though, the muscles still squeezing in and resisting every centimeter that she tried to take. Clara could feel the tension, feel the way that the walls were stretched out around her form. If the Doctor hadn’t noticed her presence yet, she supposed he was unlikely to and she wasn’t quite sure where that left her.

As she was pondering it, there was a faint red light to the side of her, like something bright shining through the flesh. Squirming a little, Clara turned her head towards the glow, curious. It got brighter, turning more pink, and then then a sort of orange-yellow, and finally white. The light was too bright then, and then Clara had to close her burning eyes, try to turn away from the source of irritation. The light enveloped her, pricked at her skin like hundreds of needles, filled her head with television static.

She woke without realizing that she’d fallen asleep, opening her eyes with a soft gasp. Her mind was still a bit fuzzy but the air was clearer and there was open space around her, white ceiling above her and bright lights from every direction. Either she’d died or she’d otherwise gotten out, with the former being less favorable but more likely. As her eyes adjusted to the lighting, Clara realized that she was actually what looked like some sort of giant hospital room, which meant that is was both still alive and still small.

Clara sat up quickly and found that she’d been splayed out on a lilac-colored towel, which was laid on a large metal tray. She was dry, she realized. Only wiped down and not washed, but she was really actually dry for the first time in what felt like a very long time. She’d need to take a long bath when she got home but being dry was a refreshing start.

There was a shuffling sound to the side of her and Clara jumped, quickly looking towards the source. Oh. It was the Doctor, turned mostly away from her, putting something away inside a box. He was sitting in what looked sort of like a dentist’s chair, which was positioned right next to whatever surface Clara’s tray was resting on. It was almost strange to see him so small. Well. Relatively speaking. Of course they’d both been Human sized when they’d first met but after his titanic appearance in her bedroom earlier, he looked rather… well, normal. Just a guy, slightly disheveled looking, fiddling with the clasp on the box in his hands. His dress shirt had been untucked and rolled up to his chest, leaving his abdomen exposed. There was a little red mark that looked sort of like a welt on the lower left side, below and to the left of his navel.

As she was looking at him, the Doctor glanced once over at Clara. Upon seeing that she was awake, he quickly tossed the box aside, apparently turning full attention to her. The box clattered to the floor somewhere she couldn’t see and then they were left in silence, just staring at each other. He smiled excitedly when they first made eye contact but then something seemed to cross over him and he leaned towards Clara with a stern expression on his face.

“Just what do you think you were you doing in there?” He snapped, to Clara’s surprise. “That was incredibly dangerous; you could’ve been killed.” His voice in general had gone back to its usual speed and pitch, but still there was nothing inviting about the way he’d spoken.

“You’re the one who ate me.” Standing her ground, as frankly Clara did not believe that she was in the wrong and wasn’t willing to take the blame for being ingested. Or shrunk. And if he was going to imply that she’d somehow snuck in there on purpose, she’d argue it without hesitation.

“Did I? Well my apologies but that’s what you get when you hang around in food.” He’d responded to her! He’d actually heard her. It was so good to finally be able to get a word in that she forgot she’d planned on arguing, forgot to say anything at all. There was a pause, both of them still staring at the other, the Doctor’s hands twisting around each other like he was nervous or maybe anxious. After a moment, his face softened, melting to something more of concern. He ran a hand along his brow with a sigh. “Sorry, are you alright?”

“I… don’t know.” Physically, Clara didn’t feel all that bad. Drained and sore as all hell, but aside from that, it didn’t feel like she had any real damage. Hopefully. Mentally though? Well. It would take her a little while to process what had just happened. “Where am I?”

“The TARDIS. I’ll explain later. You’re safe now.” Safe from what? Him? Clara wasn’t sure if she could trust him, not after what had happened.

“Why did you shrink me?”

“Me?” Pointing at himself with surprise, “I didn’t do that!”

“You left the Jammie Dodgers, didn’t you?”

“Yes-”

“The _tampered_ Jammie Dodgers?” There was no question what had done the shrinking and truthfully, Clara didn’t really care how it’d happened. The Doctor stared at her blankly but she could see the wheels turning in his head, could see him trying to make sense of it. “So? Why’d you do it?”

“Clara, I ate them too. Are you sure it was the-” As if she needed reminding.

“Positive.”

“Okay.” Frowning, “You know, come to think of it, I don’t remember where I got those. Might not’ve been Earth.” Hands on his chin, thinking. To be honest, the possibility and even implication that he could’ve picked them up not on Earth was the least shocking thing Clara had dealt with all day. If he wasn’t going to explain his motives, maybe it was better for her to just drop it. At that size she was still at his mercy and wouldn’t be able to run away if she pissed him off.

“Can you please just fix this?”

“You’re growing at a steady rate; looks like you’ll be back to your usual self in no time. Just have to wait it out, unfortunately.” Sitting back in the dentist’s chair, head against the back and folding his hands in his lap.

“Oh.” Clara could only hope that it hadn’t come out sounding as disappointed as she felt. It really was just starting to look like one big accident and she wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.

“Hey, I want to show you something” The Doctor reached into a space somewhere below the surface Clara was on and withdrew a piece of paper, thick like cardstock. He looked at it once, smiled, and then flipped the page around, holding it up Clara to see. It was some sort of medical scan printout, but not like one she’d ever seen before. It was so crisp, so clear, nothing like the blurry lines of the x-ray she’d seen that time she’d broken her wrist. Shades of blue presented a view of the Doctor’s pelvic and abdominal region, bones brightly highlighted and tissue visible in a more muted color. And there, right on the left side of the image, was a little skeleton. Her skeleton, Clara realized with a jolt. Curled up there inside of him, flesh shifted and stretched across her form.

“Oh my god…” Truly, Clara was a bit speechless, as it wasn’t something she ever thought she would see. That she’d ever thought was possible. But the proof was right there, just in case she tried to write it off again as a bad dream. It was a little shocking to see herself like that, to be honest. The Doctor poked his head over top of the print, resting his giant chin right on the top of the paper.

“Our first photo together. Isn’t that neat?” Grinning at her over the picture, before withdrawing and putting the scan down on the surface that the tray was sitting on.

“First?” Clara felt the flicker of a smile on her face. That’d been awfully bold of him. “What makes you think there’ll be a second?”

“I didn’t-” And then he cut himself off with the shake of his head, laughing a little to himself. “More importantly, you’re fine now. Oh, and there’s something in the Wi-Fi.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had to actually come up with a title for AO3 so I just picked my favorite line. When I first posted this fic, I didn't really like it, but it's really grown on me! 
> 
> Something I wrote in the original DeviantArt description that I'm still not over: "in the actual episode, the Doctor bangs a wrench against his forehead (twice!) and it (both times!) makes a metallic clanging/ringing sound... a hollow, metal on metal sound and I'm... ????? How?? What... what is he... ????? I'm calling the police"
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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